


Seven Heavenly Virtues

by mamey2422



Series: Sins & Virtues [2]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25942489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamey2422/pseuds/mamey2422
Summary: Beth experiences the seven heavenly virtues with Rio - temperance, chastity, diligence, patience, humility, charity, and kindness. Post S3.Companion fic to Seven Deadly Sins but you don’t have to read that for this to make sense.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Series: Sins & Virtues [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882807
Comments: 16
Kudos: 189





	Seven Heavenly Virtues

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to @medievalraven for the beta!

**Temperance**

Beth’s idea to use spas as her “system” was a good one, a really good one. Money was pouring in. So much and so fast that it was almost excessive.

But Beth was careful to avoid indulgence. Being a criminal, a good one at least, was all about balance. If she leaned too far into the dark, gritty side of her life she’d lose sight of why she robbed the Fine ‘N Frugal in the first place. It was for money, sure, but it was about saving her family, their home, their future.

Ever since that day, since finding Rio in her kitchen, she’d been on a tightrope, fighting for her bearings with every step. Constantly adjusting her center of gravity to keep from falling. Because Rio was always underfoot, throwing her off balance, making her dizzy.

She’d shouted at him once that all that mattered to her was that she was a mom. He yelled back, told her she was drug dealer, money launderer. He was right. But so was she. There were two sides to her and Beth was learning how to control each of them, find the right moderation between her own interests and Rio’s. At the end of the day they both wanted the same thing. Money.

Even though her methods of getting it were illegal, even though she was lying to people all around her, especially Dean, she didn’t allow herself to get wrapped up in extremes. She never lied more than she absolutely had to. Never overspent on anything wasteful. After getting caught up on the mortgage, paying off credit cards, replenishing their furniture, Beth splurged on a couple things. Rio had his G-wagon and diamond nose stud after all. Beth treated herself to a new necklace with small ‘B’ initial. For Beth, for boss bitch. And she upgraded their ottoman to one with leather, hardwood feet and storage on the inside.

There were ways to do what she was doing day in and day out while still staying in the light, on the path to being a good person.

She just had to hold herself accountable. And avoid the temptation all around her.

**Chastity**

The thing about temptation was the closer Beth got to the forbidden, the harder she had to work to stay away.

So when she started seeing Rio more and more at Boland Bubbles, when he started doing pick ups again instead of Mick, when she started noticing things like the way he smelled or how he was wearing a new shirt and the way it fit over his muscles she refused to be distracted. She ignored the way her body coiled tight and low when he looked at her a certain way. She pushed aside the attraction, the intimate memories that churned to the surface.

That hot burst of release in that dingy bathroom, those blissful hours in her bedroom were not anything she wanted to dwell on, not anything she needed to repeat. So what that little spirals of pleasure jolted through her body at just the slightest brush of Rio’s shoulder on hers when they were reviewing schedules. Or that Rio had returned to the center of her fantasies at night. Only in the dark, when she was alone in her bed, did she allow herself the pleasure of imagining his hands, lips, tongue all over her.

The perfect antidote to this particular vice was distance. So Beth stood as far from Rio as possible. She tucked her hair behind her ear before he could do it for her. Beth focused on restraint, on pure thoughts. Sometimes she tested herself, getting close enough to breathe him in for just a second, inhaling that familiar bite of cologne mixed with soap, but making sure to quickly retreat.

Occasionally something would happen, an accidental touch or a lingering stare, and time would freeze for a second, little zaps of pleasure shooting through Beth’s body, before her breathing returned to normal. She kept the sensations to herself, deposited them to revisit later.

Beth knew she had to stay away, resist. It wasn’t easy, but she never minded hard work.

**Diligence**

Beth was always a hard worker, even as a young girl. Give her a problem or a task and she thrived, became laser focused.

As soon as she was old enough, she started babysitting neighborhood kids, squirreling away money for her and Annie’s school supplies. When there was no food in the house she hopped into their car even though she didn’t know how to drive. When she saw the prize money being offered for a local baking competition she scoured every recipe book she could get her hands on to understand what made the best dough, filling and crust.

Back then she was fueled by survival. Not much had changed since, even though her objective now was a lot less innocent than mini muffins.

Beth was determined to turn the disaster of the past year into an opportunity, to not have the sleepless nights, the violence, the death to have been all for nothing. With the right amount of persistence and effort most things were fixable. Even her mess of a relationship with Rio.

Making things work with him was self preservation. Wash enough money, get back on Rio’s good side, rebuild his trust and then maybe, just maybe, she’d get out from under his thumb and into a future that did not include him.

So she stayed the course. She poured her determination into Boland Bubbles. Negotiating with the manufacturers for the best rates, coming up with new incentive plans for the sales guys to keep them motivated. The more spas they moved the more real money they made. The more real money they made, the more fake money they washed.

Things were coming together. Slowly but surely. She just had to be patient, wait it out.

**Patience**

Patience was never one of Beth’s strong suits. She preferred plowing through whatever needed to get done.

But there was something to be said for taking time to calm herself, pause for a moment when she thought she might totally lose it. Which was how she found herself more and more these days.

If it wasn’t Dean regressing into his chauvinistic habits, then it was Rio who ignored the common courtesies of calling first or giving her a heads up that he was stopping by.

Like now. It was late, past closing time but Beth was alone in the Boland Bubbles office. To keep up the facade with Dean that the store was legitimate, Beth had to sneak in her paper work during lunch or after hours, cook the books when no one was looking, even when she was exhausted.

She was just about done, looking forward to curling up in her bed with a glass of wine, when Rio popped in out of nowhere, handing her a piece of paper. She wasn’t even startled, annoyance immediately surfacing into a barely contained eye roll.

“What’s this?” Rio asked, handing her a piece of paper.

“Exactly what it looks like,” Beth responded, needing to only glance at the paper to know what it was. “An invoice from a new manufacturer.”

“There’s only a 15% discount on there. You said 20%.”

Beth heard the distrust tinging Rio’s voice and couldn’t entirely blame him. She’d tried skimming off the top once before and paid dearly for it. But he could cut her some slack. She’d been nothing but a model employee since Boland Bubbles opened. Give or take the hired hit man.

“That was before we cut back the order.” Beth spoke slowly, fighting the growing irritation at the conversation, at her circumstances. “The bulk discount no longer applied.”

“Yeah? You sure that five percent isn’t going in someone’s pocket? Your Oklahoma partner flying private again?”

Beth slowly put down her pen and inhaled deeply, holding it for three seconds before exhaling.

 _Patience_ , she told herself.

“It’s the best price they could offer. Considering we weren’t even getting a discount from the previous vendor it’s more than fair.”

Rio watched her intently for a moment, then another, nodding his head as if making a decision before speaking again.

“You’re buying less but spending more. Those new models cost twice as much as what anyone else is ordering. Get a discount based on total spend instead of quantity.”

Beth paused, forced herself to remain expressionless, to not give away her disappointment that she hadn’t thought of it.

“Fine.” She snatched the paper out of his hand.

Why did he have to be right? And so smart? And so smug?

**Humility**

Beth knew what it was like to not be fully seen as a person, to not be considered smart or capable. Dean thought her superpower was making a sandwich look like a dinosaur. Kenny thought she couldn’t do math. It never bothered her before. Being a good wife and mother was all that mattered so she flexed those skills. Organized, efficient, creative.

But then she was faced with losing everything. When she first found out about Dean’s affair and crushing debt, she felt anger. At his infidelity, his deceit. But what was most paralyzing was the sense of walls closing in around her, a lack of control over her future.

Then in swooped Rio, giving a shape to her life that she never realized she needed or wanted. She gave herself credit for stepping up, figuring things out, but Rio played a role too. He pulled out all these new parts of her from deep inside her. She could have never imagined the choices she would make, the woman she would turn into because of him.

Like becoming good at printing money. Really good. She knew about the pulp and paint and printing presses of it all. But Rio excelled at something less tangible. What he showed her was how to find her place in a world that no longer seemed so black and white.

Rio’s brilliance was subtle, and she had to give credit where it was due. As Boland Bubbles became successful, and the business more complex, she came to respect the way Rio made difficult decisions. She saw the selflessness in his actions for the first time. How negotiating percentages wasn’t just about putting more money in his pocket but it’s what allowed him to pay the dozens of people who worked for him. And happy employees meant quiet, drama-free employees.

Beth tended to focus on dealing with the most immediate task at hand in whatever way necessary, worrying about the details later. Rio, on the other hand, took fragments and put together the whole, looked ahead to what everything was leading toward. She used to believe that the answer to most any problem was uncomplicated. Simply move forward and momentum would get her where she needed to be. But Rio challenged her to slow down, to examine individual pieces of information, look for invisible connections.

Instead of weaponizing his knowledge he started sharing it. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but the money rolling in from the spas helped. Success greased the wheels between them and Rio opened his world up to her bit by bit. Instead of scrambling away, Beth jumped in feet first, reveling in it, burying herself in it, absorbing it all.

His words could still be harsh, but the edges softened. Instead of cutting her she learned to take the blows, to listen instead of just hearing. She learned when to brake into the curves of his moods or when to accelerate out of them.

She paid attention to how he gave nothing away, kept people guessing, nobody ever really knowing what was on his mind. She noticed how he stopped trouble before it started, got out of the way once it did or fueled it when he had to.

Eventually the ebbs and flows of his presence started to soothe her, and she sometimes wished she could harness his quiet intensity, bottle it up, carry it with her. With time, though, she felt his energy on her skin, in her muscles. She started to move like he moved, efficient and effortless, as if he knew everyone and everything around him would leave him unbothered, untouched, unscathed.

Beth knew she was smart but she was realizing she could learn a lot from Rio. And maybe one day she could return the favor.

**Charity**

Even in the darkness of the park bench, Beth could tell Rio’s mind was somewhere else. There was a distracted energy to his usually focused eyes, firm stance.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He silently shook his head, pursed his lips, as he handed her a bag of money.

“The vendor adjusted the discount. I took care of it.”

“It’s good.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I just...got a thing with Marcus.”

Beth prepared for another invoice battle, to defend whatever perceived discrepancy Rio saw as an insult to his bank account so she was caught off guard by his answer. By the rare mention of his son.

“What kind of thing?”

“Bake sale. A fundraiser for his youth club. It’s my turn to put it on and Rhea’s away this weekend.”

Rio let the sentence drift away as if the rest didn’t need to be spoken about being out of his wheelhouse. Beth smiled at the thought of Rio wearing an apron, putting together a crafty table display. Obviously he knew he could buy everything and just sell it at a mark up. He might not know the difference between buttercream and Swiss meringue but he knew money.

“And you promised him home made?”

“He asked if we could do it together. I couldn’t say no.”

“I can help.” Beth said, immediately pulling out a pen and paper from her purse and writing quickly. “Get everything on this list and bring it to my house on Thursday. I’ve done a hundred bake sales. I’ll get you guys set up and Marcus will be so happy.”

Beth smiled bashfully as she handed the paper to Rio, his eyebrows raised in surprise. With everything going on with the spas and the kids and the tenuous nature of her relationship with Rio, this should probably be the last thing she offered to do. But she loved baking. She knew what it was like to not want to disappoint your children. And she knew what it was like to be in Rio’s shoes, responsible for all the ins and outs of a fundraiser, when someone being generous with their time or money made a world of difference. Her motivation wasn’t even underhanded. This wasn’t about getting on Rio’s good side. This was simply what a good person would do. And that’s what she was. A good person.

Turned out Rio was an easy customer. He didn’t care about gluten and nuts. He wasn’t overly concerned about decorations.

“Whatever will make the most money,” he said, when he and Marcus were gathered in Beth’s kitchen two days later.

After settling on an animal theme, Beth guided them through cupcakes that looked like lions and zebras and sugar cookies in the shapes of monkeys and giraffes. Beth kept her distance, stayed out of the way, observed. Rio’s features were as arrogant and handsome as ever, but there was something more tender to him when he was with Marcus. It felt like a gift to see this other side of him that was usually locked away.

When they were done, boxes and boxes loaded into Rio’s car Marcus hopped excitedly up and down.

“Thank you, daddy!” He threw himself into Rio’s arms for a hug.

Rio bent down to catch him, but looked back up at Beth as they smiled at each other.

“You’re welcome. And who else do we have to thank?”

Marcus peeled himself off Rio and turned to Beth.

“Thank you Mrs. Boland,” he said.

“Anytime. And I’d like to be your first customer and make the first donation. I’ll buy a box of the lion cupcakes. My kids will love those.” Beth fished a fifty dollar bill out of her wallet and handed it to Marcus. “Keep the change.”

Marcus’ smile beamed even brighter, and Beth had an instinct to hug them both good bye. She stopped herself, of course, because that would be a bizarre thing to do.

**Kindness**

Slowly, the beginning of a bizarre new pattern started forming between Beth and Rio, turning them upside down, knocking the hate and anger and frustration from its place, displacing it with something warm and stubborn and fluid.

It happened so casually, threads coming together to wrap them in their shared history, into an actual partnership, a friendship, something more.

Like the bake sale. Like the way Beth started smiling around him. And Rio too. His big, charming smile that reached all the way to his eyes. They even laughed together every now and then. Sometimes he stood so close to her that his voice tickled her skin. She started bringing him home made ginger snaps when he mentioned how much he liked hers. Like the way Rio called in a favor to get Jane into the same after school art program Marcus was in even though it sold out.

They were covered in battle scars, his literal, hers hidden on her soul, but when they let go of their fierce grip on control and power, there was actually space for this thing between them to grow. For them both to co-exist, to complement each other. The phantom limb of those three gunshots faded. Rio never guilted her about it, tried to make her feel worse than she already did. Whatever answers he was looking for he seemingly found. Beth called off the hitman, the decision coming one night as she washed dishes and looked over to her picnic table. She never responded Fitzpatrick’s final text. _Glad things worked out with your lover._

When Boland Bubbles had an especially great month of sales, when Rio brought her a bottle of bourbon to celebrate, it all felt normal, expected, appreciated. Beth didn’t mind the unannounced visit, didn’t stop herself from standing close as they cheered glasses in her kitchen.

Beth let the liquor linger on her lips, felt the warmth spread down her throat, into her chest, then lower. Rio’s gaze followed the same trail. Beth welcomed it.

Her eyes locked on his, then moved to that place where the tips of his inked eagle wings pointed to the soft spot just below his ears. The spot she’d kissed over and over. She could remember it, taste it.

Words bubbled up to her lips. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped, afraid the anticipation of what she wanted would make her voice too shaky. Rio understood anyway, seemed to want it too, because he pushed her hair off her face, his other hand drew her toward him but she was already leaning into him.

Once it was happening, once they were kissing, time changed. It felt both endless and warp speed. In a blur, they moved to her bedroom, clothes dropping behind them as they went.

They fell onto the bed, and Rio leaned back on his elbows as if waiting for her. Beth crawled to him, remembering how much she loved his muscles. She tugged down the waist of his jeans, nuzzled him over his boxers before pulling him out. She stroked him, took her time, before licking his length, bobbing her head up and down. She heard his breath start to change, his hand moved into her hair, and she sucked harder and deeper.

In another blur, Rio flipped her onto her back, bent down between her legs. Instead of taking off her panties he licked her through the lace, pulling the fabric up to create friction, simultaneously exposing her and covering her. Slow and gentle, licking up and down, increasing his speed and pressure until she was moaning and trembling. Then he changed his motion, sucking her into his mouth through the lace, then a gentle release, then tightly sucking again, then release. Over and over.

When he was inside her, the intensity of it radiated through Beth’s body. His slow, long strokes made her a little wild beneath him, rocking her hips, widening her legs, digging her nails into his skin. She couldn’t understand how he knew just the way to hold her hips, just the right angle to hit. She came so hard that tears filled her eyes, her body trembled with little aftershocks. When Rio collapsed on top of her she welcomed his weight.

Somehow it made sense that this was where she’d end up. Fucked senseless by Rio. Deep and hard and passionate. Just like everything else between them. She could never describe him, define them. No longer tried to. When Rio pulled her into his arms she didn’t resist.


End file.
